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The Numerous Issues with the Change to Calm Spirit
Before the patch, I used Calm Spirit to prevent screaming. It was a fun, off-meta perk with a niche use. Now, if I want that effect, I have to have a 30% action speed debuff that I didn't have before, for an effect that barely increases the effectiveness of the perk.
The following can negate the benefits of a silent cleanse/search:
- The Killer is still able to hear your breathing and grunts of pain. So this change is a direct nerf when injured, and also possible to be useless if they hear you breathing when healthy.
- The Killer still hears when the action is complete, negating any stealth from the action.
- Many totems/chests have a clear line of sight, making the only effective change the slower speed, meaning the change is a direct nerf to those actions.
- For totems out of line of sight, Killers will still often check the totem, even more now to avoid Calm Spirit, much like when Killers would slug to avoid DS, therefore nullifying the change anyway.
- The outcome of these actions would not give any benefit to the survivor when the killer is far away/not in the terror radius, therefore whenever you do the actions when the killer is not nearby, it is a direct nerf.
- Any aura reading perks, which are common, negate any silence the action provides as well.
Therefore the killer needs to be nearby, not have line of sight, they have to not have a good headset, they can't already want to check the totem, and you can't be injured, all in order to get value from the perk that still loses you extra time (in a game where time is everything).
This change is frustrating for people who used Calm Spirit, and all my friends who never ran it, say they now 100% won't run it, because they already thought it was a bad perk. So across the board it is more unappealing to players.
We are getting a nerf for an effect that we didn't even use the perk for.
I would rather have a quicker cleanse than a silent cleanse, given all these conditions. I would rather the silent actions removed along with the debuff, than instead changing it so that you're completely silent and the completed action is also silent if it means keeping the debuff speed.
Additionally, for perspective: the penalty to the actions is greater than full stacks of Thanatophobia. A SURVIVOR perk gives you a greater penalty to yourself cleansing totems than a KILLER perk at max value.
If you believe the action speed penalty is needed to compensate for the silent actions (note that Bite the Bullet has no such penalties, which is GOOD that it does not), please instead remove the effect altogether and revert the perk to how it was pre-patch.